Emily Ekins reports: The Cato 2017 Free Speech and Tolerance Survey, a new national poll of 2,300 U.S. adults, finds that 71% Americans believe that political correctness has silenced important discussions our society needs to have. The consequences are personal—58%

of Americans believe the political climate prevents them from sharing their own political beliefs.

Democrats are unique, however, in that a slim majority (53%) do not feel the need to self-censor. Conversely, strong majorities of Republicans (73%) and independents (58%) say they keep some political beliefs to themselves.

On the other hand, 40% think government should prevent hate speech. Despite this, the survey also found Americans willing to censor, regulate, or punish a wide variety of speech and expression they personally find offensive:

51% of staunch liberals say it’s “morally acceptable” to punch Nazis.

53% of Republicans favor stripping U.S. citizenship from people who burn the American flag.

51% of Democrats support a law that requires Americans use transgender people’s preferred gender pronouns.

65% of Republicans say NFL players should be fired if they refuse to stand for the anthem.

Dyke March organizers removed participants waving Jewish Pride flags because they were ‘triggering’.

The Chicago-based LGBTQ newspaper Windy City Times quoted a Dyke March collective member as saying the rainbow flag with the Star of David in the middle “made people feel unsafe,” and that the march was “pro-Palestinian” and “anti-Zionist.”

The Chicago Dyke March is billed as an “anti-racist, anti-violent, volunteer-led, grassroots mobilization and celebration of dyke, queer, bisexual, and transgender resilience,” according to its Twitter account.

Laurel Grauer, a member of the Jewish LGBTQ organization A Wider Bridge, told the Windy City Times “it was a flag from my congregation which celebrates my queer, Jewish identity which I have done for over a decade marching in the Dyke March with the same flag.”

“Most worrisome, by rooting these complaints almost entirely in an emotional agenda, the protesters conveniently shield themselves from a cornerstone of American liberal-arts education — self-reflection and honest critique.”

The alleged offenses range from the horrific — fecal swastikas, social-media threats against black students — to more trivial questions about skin tone, hair texture and economic status.

Stung by a seemingly endless barrage of race-based attacks, Missouri students feel “awkward,” “exhausted” and “uncomfortable,” The New York Times reports.

Elle interviewed a Yale senior who says the school makes people of color “feel small” and she, personally, like “the token black girl at the party every weekend.”

Having survived my own journey as a minority at a pair of elite East Coast universities, I can understand these kids’ sentiments — no matter the navel-gazing. But the sentiment seems to drown out any discussion of much actual fact.

Reared on a diet of “microaggressions” and “hostile environments,” “safe spaces” and the need for “validation,” many of these students have seemingly conflated hurt feelings with actual outright discrimination.

The distinction is important — particularly at a moment when words like “violence,” “outrage” and “marginalization” have become little more than opportunistic jargon. Offense, while unfortunate, does not a movement make — a point wisely raised by Hillary Clinton when confronting #blacklivesmatter protesters this April. Read the rest of this entry »

The editorial board of PennLive/The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa. is taking a hardcore stance against those who disagree with the Supreme Court ruling to legalize gay marriage.

“As a result of Friday’s ruling, PennLive/The Patriot-News will no longer accept, nor will it print, op-Eds and letters to the editor in opposition to same-sex marriage,” they declared.

After receiving strong pushback, the newspaper’s editorial board, which is overseen by Editorial Page Editor John Micek, quickly revised its policy. Freedom of speech will be allowed — but only for a “limited” period of time. Read the rest of this entry »

Ted Cruz is a REAL THREAT!

…Cruz chose to announce his candidacy at the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, which was during Reagan’s time and still is a hot-bed of Republican-Christian Rightism. As noted, his platform sounds very much like Hague’s. But further, he claimed that “Americans’ liberties” are granted by “God,” and that that wording is found in the Constitution. In fact, neither the word “God” nor the word “Christian” is to be found anywhere in the Constitution. Cruz was in fact referencing the Declaration of Independence (which while a great document is not part of the Constitution), misquoting it by claiming that the famous phrase about “inalienable rights” were said to “be endowed” by God. Actually, this is mistake, intentional or not, the the Repubs. are making over-and-over again, with increasing frequency. The writers of the Declaration, who could certainly have chosen the word “God,” chose instead the word Creator. It happens that I, a non-theistic Reasonist, am entirely comfortable with that word, for for me our Creators are the immutable laws of chemistry, physics, and biology.

Cruz’ concept of “God” is at the very center of his thinking. I do believe that, unlike the character J.D. Hague, who just used “the preachers” as he called them, to gain power, Cruz really believes this stuff, which makes him even more dangerous. A right-wing columnist said that talking privately with Ted Cruz was like listening to a set of stump speeches.

Although he is now regarded as a long shot, his shot may not be so long, especially because right at the beginning of his speech he talked about getting a very strong ground game going. He will not only be able to call upon the Christian Right (and “Evangelicals” is a polite misnomer: there are plenty of non-Republican, non-political evangelicals). Of course, he will also be able to call upon the Tea Party activists of the type who propelled him to the Senate in Texas.

So Ted Cruz is a real threat. And if he gets the GOP nomination he is not going to be defeated by arguing about what the Constitution doesn’t say about “God” and “Christianity.” Nor is he going to be defeated by talking simply about women’s rights and gay rights, just in the context of those rights, per se, which certainly exist under any reading of the Constitution besides that of Cruz and his ilk, as found in Article VI and the First, Ninth, and 14th Amendments. The attack has to go on to Cruz’ own ground, that which he claims as “religious liberty.” Read the rest of this entry »

No one on this panel, in which I participated, trafficked in slurs. So what prompted the warning?

“Self-appointed recovery experts promoted the belief that most of us are victims of abuse, in one form or another. They broadened the definition of abuse to include a range of common, normal childhood experiences, including being chastised or ignored by your parents on occasion….”

One of my fellow panelists mentioned that the State Department had for a time banned the words “jihad,” “Islamist” and “caliphate” — which the transcript flagged as “anti-Muslim/Islamophobic language.”

“From this perspective, we are all fragile and easily damaged by presumptively hurtful speech, and censorship looks like a moral necessity.”

I described the case of a Brandeis professor disciplined for saying “wetback” while explaining its use as a pejorative. The word was replaced in the transcript by “[anti-Latin@/anti-immigrant slur].” Discussing the teaching of “Huckleberry Finn,” I questioned the use of euphemisms such as “the n-word” and, in doing so, uttered that forbidden word. I described what I thought was the obvious difference between quoting a word in the context of discussing language, literature or prejudice and hurling it as an epithet.

Two of the panelists challenged me. The audience of 300 to 400 people listened to our spirited, friendly debate — and didn’t appear angry or shocked. But back on campus, I was quickly branded a racist, and I was charged in the Huffington Post with committing “an explicit act of racial violence.” McCartney subsequently apologized that “some students and faculty were hurt” and made to “feel unsafe” by my remarks.

Unsafe? These days, when students talk about threats to their safety and demand access to “safe spaces,” they’re often talking about the threat of unwelcome speech and demanding protection from the emotional disturbances sparked by unsettling ideas. It’s not just rape that some women on campus fear: It’s discussions of rape. At Brown University, a scheduled debate between two feminists about rape culture was criticized for, as the Brown Daily Herald put it, undermining “the University’s mission to create a safe and supportive environment for survivors.” In a school-wide e-mail, Brown President Christina Paxon emphasized her belief in the existence of rape culture and invited students to an alternative lecture, to be given at the same time as the debate. And the Daily Herald reported that students who feared being “attacked by the viewpoints” offered at the debate could instead “find a safe space” among “sexual assault peer educators, women peer counselors and staff” during the same time slot. Presumably they all shared the same viewpoints and could be trusted not to “attack” anyone with their ideas.

How did we get here? How did a verbal defense of free speech become tantamount to a hate crime and offensive words become the equivalent of physical assaults?

You can credit — or blame — progressives for this enthusiastic embrace of censorship. It reflects, in part, the influence of three popular movements dating back decades: the feminist anti-porn crusades, the pop-psychology recovery movement and the emergence of multiculturalism on college campuses.

“You can credit — or blame — progressives for this enthusiastic embrace of censorship. It reflects, in part, the influence of three popular movements dating back decades: the feminist anti-porn crusades, the pop-psychology recovery movement and the emergence of multiculturalism on college campuses.”

In the 1980s, law professor Catharine MacKinnon and writer Andrea Dworkin showed the way, popularizing a view of free speech as a barrier to equality. These two impassioned feminists framed pornography — its production, distribution and consumption — as an assault on women. Read the rest of this entry »

Womens-rights activist and Islamic critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali spoke at Yale University earlier this week, at the invitation of the university’s William F. Buckley Jr. Program for an event titled “Clash of Civilizations: Islam and the West.” Ryan Lovelace covers the event for NRO